Beautiful game gets ugly in Asia

Japan appealed to China yesterday to restrain its fans after the two nations qualified for Saturday's Asian Cup final in Beijing.

Around 60,000 people are expected at the Beijing Workers' Stadium to watch the Chinese national team play for its first major trophy.

But, judging by the treatment meted out to the Japanese so far, many Chinese will hurl abuse at the visitors, refuse to stand for their national anthem and wave protest banners about Second World War atrocities.

"It's understandable not to be polite," said one fan, Yao Peng, buying tickets yesterday. "After all, they weren't so polite to us, were they?"

Anti-Japanese feeling, verging on outright racism, is common among Chinese, who regard Japan's refusal to apologise fully for its war conduct as justification for their bigotry.

Usually, this is tolerated by the Chinese government, which frequently reminds its citizens of Japanese war crimes.

But some officials believe that this has backfired during the tournament, staged in four Chinese cities. The Japanese played their group matches in Chongqing, the heavily bombed wartime capital.

Every time a Japanese player touched the ball he was jeered, while half the crowd refused to stand for the Japanese national anthem. Some fans held up a banner saying: "Looking into history, apologise to Asian people."

After one match, two Japanese players were left behind when the team bus became surrounded by an unruly mob and sped off in panic.